I sent this before, but I forgot to type in a subject for the message,
and I have no idea what filters some of you guys might have set up -.-;;
-- anyway, here's the original e-mail(with a few corrections):

Hello, list.

I'm hoping someone here can shed some insight into just a weird issue I'm
having with 2.6.6-rc1 - or, if it's a bug, hoping the right person hears
about it so it can get fixed.

Note that I've been able to boot into other 2.6 kernels in the past, even
very recent ones, so it's something related to this specific version, I'm
convinced. I've not installed any new hardware, or done anything drastic
to the kernel config; in fact, I'm pretty sure the pertinent bits of the
kernel config are identical to the configs I used in older kernels, which
didn't cause the problem I'm outlining.

Anyway, here's my hardware:
Athlon-XP 2500
1024 MB DDR RAM
A7N8X 2.0
Onboard sound and ethernet
Geforce FX 5900
LSIU160 SCSI controller
Onboard SiI3112 SATA controller
WD Raptor 10K 70 GB HDD
Atlas 10K II SCSI HDD

Here's my issue:

I installed the 2.6.6-rc1 kernel a couple days ago, and tried to boot up
as normal. Here's the last bit of output to the screen(Had to record it
on paper). I'm going to insert a notification of where I believe the
output begins to deviate from what I've seen in the past(I apologize if
I'm overdetailing things, but I want to be as informative as possible):

sym0:<1010-33> rev 0x1 PCI 0000:01:0a.0 irq 16
sym0: using 64 bit DMA addressing
sym0: Symbios NVRAM ID7, fast 80, LVD, parity checking
sym0: Open drain IRQ driver, using on-chip SRAM
sym0: using LOAD/STORE based firmware
sym0: handling phase mismatch from SCRIPTS
sym0: scan at boot disabled for targets 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15
sym0: scan for LUNS disabled for targets 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15
scsi0: Sym-2.1.18j
Vendor: QUANTUM Model: ATLAS10K2-TY734J
Type: Direct-access ANSI SCSI revision: 03

/*I believe that all output above this point is identical to output from
previous kernel versions;
 *I know for sure all output below this point deviates from before. */

scsi(0:0:0:0): Beginning Domain Validation
sym0:0:Wide asynchronous                   #<---The system hangs at this
point for about 20 seconds,
sym0:0: ABORT operation started            #and also waits about 20-30
seconds at each ABORT and DEVICE RESET attempt
sym0:0: ABORT operation timed out
sym0:0: DEVICE RESET operation started
sym0:0: DEVICE RESET operation completed
sym0: SCSI bus has been reset
sym0:0: ABORT operation started
sym0:0: ABORT operation timed out
sym0:0: DEVICE RESET operation started
sym0:0: DEVICE RESET operation completed
sym0: SCSI bus has been reset

After this, it just hangs for about three minutes, then the screen goes
blank(presumably due to inactivity), and the system remains unresponsive.
Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing. I
had to power off.

I am able to use the Gentoo 2.6.5 kernel without any problems, as well as
older 2.6 kernels, such as 2.6.4, without a hint of this happening.

Attached are my kernel configs for the Gentoo 2.6.5-rc1 and vanilla
2.6.6-rc1 kernels, as well as the output from lspci, just in case that's
needed.

Thanks in advance for any help.